Deutsche Telekom launches M2M Marketplace

German carrier Deutsche Telekom has launched an M2M Marketplace; a platform for manufacturers and dealers around the world to sell hardware, software, apps and full-package M2M solutions. The operator group said that it aims to provide vendors with a global distribution channel for their M2M products in addition to their own sales channels.

Customers can compare offers internationally, and either choose individual products and solutions from the range offered in the marketplace, or instead opt to purchase a full-package solution, Deutsche Telekom said. It added that, in the future, it will also offer the requisite SIMs and chips via the marketplace.

Vendors can list the details of their hardware, software and industry apps on the portal, and include pictures of the product, or screenshots of the web interface. Vendors can allocate their offers to nine segments: Energy, Healthcare, Transport & Logistics, Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Retail, Industrial Automation, Public Sector and Security.

Jamie Moss, analyst at Informa, said that he expects other operators around the world to develop similar M2M offerings to Deutsche Telekom’s Marketplace in time.

“This is a strategy that need to be adopted across carriers, but ideally in a way that allows interoperability so that software developers can publish to multiple stores through multiple carriers in the same way they do in the consumer domain for mobile phones,” he said.

He added that there are different ways that operators can focus on the application layer of M2M solutions: they could either seek to resell the specialist services of existing M2M service providers or acquire specialist application developers.

“There’s a myriad of very small companies out there whose entire value is based upon the proprietary software solution that they offer, and who serve a very particular niche, often within a very particular geography, with an M2M product. Carriers can locate and partner with them and resell their solutions to wider market, operating a revenue share model,” said Moss.

“The other way is to acquire specialist application developers and this is the approach Vodafone has been taking. Vodafone likes to have full ownership of the solutions that it offers – it doesn’t want other operators to offer the same thing, so it tends to purchase outright when it sees a company valuable enough.”

He said that this approach would bring in-house the necessary M2M software expertise, but operators would struggle to develop a bespoke solution for each vertical and use case.

“So the Deutsche Telekom approach is very interesting because it allows specialist software developers to be able to develop software which can be used to create bespoke solutions without the carrier themselves actually having to go through this creation process – they just host the environment in which the software can reside and enterprises can come to pull together all the components that they need- so it’s a self-service portal.”

Vendors can offer their solutions free of charge via the M2M Marketplace until July 2, 2012, after which, fees for online sales platforms will be charged, varying in accordance with the type of solution being sold.

During the launch phase To begin with, the M2M Marketplace will be launched in English. Other languages are planned, as is expansion into the consumer market.